can the outlander accept 15 inch snow tires? would the small tires make the SUV unstable ?

 

as long as the 15" tires have the same outer diameter and the rims have the same bolt pattern and similar offset, you should be golden. I would imagine though that there would be more movement laterally, like if you took a turn very sharply. This would cause the tire to buckle and fold over some. I had this happen some on my older Eclipse, but that car is much lower and lighter than the Outlander.

 

Aren't the bolt patterns of steel wheels the identical in most cars & SUV?

 

Do you have the 2007+ Outlanders (2Gen.)?
IF you put 16's on the Outlander, you get a profile of 70 ready, b/c is 215-70-16.
If you put 15's on there, you will have a very high profile from the tire, over 80 for sure. I don't think you can even find something like that for a normal passenger vehicle. Very Very hard to find.

Also, I have 16" snow tires on right now, and since is at such high profile, and winter tire, their sidewall tend to be softer, it looks if the tire is low on air, which is not. It looks like that because of the high profile/side wall, and the vehicle is heavier, resulting that. Imagine 15" on that car...

 

Usually the bolt pattern and offset is stamped on the inside of the wheel. Our bolt pattern is 5x114.


i played a bit with a tire calculator. To get the approximate same diameter with similar tires on a 15" rim, you'll run with a 215/75R15 tire. With that tire, if you want to go 60MPH, your speedometer will need to read 60.3MPH...close enough. Looking at tirerack.com, there are tires out there for that size...so I guess it is doable.